How to deal with being overwhelmed with ideas while coding?

@Mohrad23|April 25, 2022 (3y ago)69 views

A few productivity tricks I've practiced over the past few months to get the most out of the ideas that come to my mind while coding.

If you're a programmer and you find yourself on this page, chances are you get overwhelmed with ideas while coding. For many programmers, coding sessions are when amazing ideas come to mind. However, these ideas often come when we're in the middle of tasks that need our full focus and attention. So, we need to maintain our focus while keeping track of all the design or feature ideas that come to mind. Here are a few tips:

Create a Habit of Writing Your Thoughts During Coding Sessions

Two things I always have with me are my notebook and pen. Despite all that programming entails, it is also a creative process where ideas come into existence. In my mind, programming is like a journey of solving problems where your mind takes you through all the tricks it has learned to solve the challenge. Once you knock out the first problem, you often get a stream of ideas for the next feature. This can be overwhelming to keep organized.

Ideas are easy to forget, which is why having a paper and pen by your side always reminds you to note down your thoughts on each coding journey. By the end of each session, you will be amazed by the number of ideas and thoughts you've written down.

Sometimes, you might not be in a creative mode, and ideas might not come easily. This is when writing can help. Documenting your code is a practice that good programmers use to make their code readable by others. But what they often ignore is the thought process behind each implementation. This can be valuable to you or someone else who wants to learn from you.

Therefore, even if some days are hard to be creative, you can still write down your thoughts occasionally for your future self. Who knows, maybe that golden idea will occur to you while you are writing down your thoughts.

Keep a List of Things You Need to Code

For me, developing a feature is like a ritual. Before sitting down and starting coding, I like to create a roadmap so I know where I'm going. I know a lot of people prefer just to start things, but programmers are productive in different ways. Before starting my coding session, I always keep a list of features or tasks I need to get done.

Usually, the list is less than five items, and sometimes it takes more than one session to complete all five items. However, the benefit is that if an idea comes to mind, I can pause my work temporarily and research more about it while coding. This helps me establish my next move for the project while progressing with the current task. Then, I can lay out a future plan to stay busy and write better code.

Conclusion

Writing your thoughts is more than just writing better code. Writing down what you do helps you organize your thoughts and think more clearly about the job at hand. While your coding sessions may become longer, you will probably get more done with a clearer mind. This can be one of the best tools in any professional’s arsenal.